


My Heart's Been Broke for a While; Yours Has Been the One Keeping Me Alive

by itslikegodspilledaperson



Series: The Edison/Winger Chronicles [1]
Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Jeff POV, first fan fic, post s5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-11
Updated: 2015-03-11
Packaged: 2018-03-17 08:50:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3523049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itslikegodspilledaperson/pseuds/itslikegodspilledaperson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Typical J/A, post-S5 pre-S6 fic to hold you over til March 17.  Not my first work, but first time publishing.  Chapter 1 of a 4 chapter series, 1st Chapter preceded by an introduction.  Strictly Jeff's POV, but i have other stories that cover J/A from different perspectives and angles.  Been reading a lot of these to hold me over til S6, so a few ideas here and there may have made their way into this work, but I swear it is completely by accident.  Mild language, and implied borderline alcoholism.</p><p>Title is referenced from Lupe Fiasco's "Beautiful Lasers".</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Exposed

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place the summer after Basic Sandwich. The group's basically dying to know how Jeff opened the bunker door, and he decides to beat them to the punch and tell them before they stumble upon the answer themselves. Things never go as planned.

Intro.

The room spun. Not in the dizzying, I just got off a roller coaster kind of way, but more of the gradual, floating kind of way. It was the perfect amount to counteract the way his head had been spinning for the last week or two. Just to insure it stayed that way, Jeff lifted the glass of scotch to his mouth and took another sip. That ought to do it for a few more minutes; he thought to himself as he rested his head against the back of the couch. 

He looked at the four walls of the apartment- not his apartment, an old client’s. The man was Jordy Hiller, a wealthy entrepreneur. Jeff had successfully gotten him acquitted of solicitation back in his big time lawyer days. As a sign of gratitude Hiller had granted him unrestricted use of his Rocky Mountain lodge, a condo he owned but seldom used, in his own words. “I own the ski lodge that the Condo is on, but why vacation in Colorado when you have the money for Hawai’i. Anyways…if ya ever want to take a…special friend there, feel free,” Hiller had once said. Jeff never seriously considered the offer made seven years ago, thinking Hiller a slimy grease ball who didn't deserve a second thought. But things had changed, and he had to get away. Granted, he wasn't here under the same circumstances Hiller had offered the place to him for, but he technically was here with a special friend: Liquor. So here he was. Alone, drinking away his memories, wishing for the life of him that he could go back to the days before he was outed as a phony lawyer. But more importantly, wishing he had never met Annie Edison. He closed his eyes, and began to drift.

CHAPTER ONE; EXPOSED.

He wakes up and he’s at the park with his friends. It’s the day of the “Greendale Lives On/Welcome Back, Troy” picnic. All their friends are there; Shirley, Annie, Britta, Troy, and Abed as well as other “recurring characters” (Abed’s words, not his) like Duncan, Rachel, Chang, and the Dean. There was family there too, including Shirley’s husband and three kids. The party was fun, which is something Jeff rarely caught himself thinking in regards to Greendale. They drank beer, played corn hole, and tossed the pigskin amongst other things. Jeff was twenty or so yards away from Troy, who was about ten yards away from the rest of the group. The two threw the football back and forth, talking about what the other had missed in the year they hadn't seen each other. It was the last good memory of the night.

“You got a good arm,” Troy observed.

“I know. Played high school football for two years; Tight End.”

“You’re kidding me,” Troy laughed. “How have we never talked about this?”

“Cuz I quit” he responded succinctly. 

“Why?”

“Same reason I've quit everything in my life: I got tired of it.” 

Troy didn't seem surprised by the answer. Before they could resume talking, he could hear something being shouted to Troy. Behind Troy, the group sat around a campfire as the late afternoon sun began its slow descent. The crisp, nightly Colorado breeze began to blow in from over the tree line and down through the campground. The gathering had been whittled down to just a few people. Shirley, Annie, Britta, Abed, Rachel, Dean Pelton, and Borchert were all who remained. Andre had taken the children home, while Duncan was probably off to a bar. Chang had likely tagged along with the British professor. 

“What’s the deal, Troy?” Jeff inquired. 

Troy turned back to Jeff, “They want us to come over.”

Thinking nothing of it, Jeff walked over, tossing the ball to Troy as they both took seats around the fire. Troy plopped down next to Abed and Rachel, while Jeff sat in a chair that Annie had reserved for him.

“Saved you a seat” She said, patting the bottom of the Chair as Jeff approached. She looked up at him and he looked back into her eyes. Those eyes, that seemed to see through everything. All that armor he had spent so long amassing around him since his father had left, she saw through it without any effort at all. She looked up at him, the real him, with those doe eyes. He couldn't help but feel his heart warm just a little bit as she flashed him that classic Annie grin he had come to know so well. 

He sat down; as Abed tossed him a beer from the cooler he and Rachel were propped up against, he heard Troy addressing him once more.

“So, what Abed told me about y’all being locked up in that basement…Is that true, Jeff?”

Jeff could feel Annie looking up at him.

“Yep.”

“And you really used your brain to program a love computer into unlocking?” Troy continued.

Once again, Jeff responded “Yes.”

“Whoa….” Troy said, dumbfounded. “You just wrinkled my brain.”

A now clean shaven Borchert interjected:

“Well, he didn't just power it up with his brain; he used a sort of passion burst to do it. It’s actually the reason we called you over here.”  
The Dean added on to Borchert’s thought: “We would like to do a psych study on you, Mr. Winger, to see if we can figure out what actually opened that door. It could make for some very interesting research.”

“What?” Jeff exclaimed. 

“Yeah!” Britta piped up. “The Dean said Greendale could fund the whole thing, and Duncan, Borchert, and I would be the research heads.”

Jeff was startled that all this had gone on under his nose. The group was monumentally bad at keeping secrets. Yet, they had kept this. Of course, the research project was a fool’s errand: Jeff knew damn well what opened up that door. It was Annie. He had felt the feelings that opened the door for such a long time, far before he could even remember. But it ironically took Annie giving him up in Borchert’s lab, telling him that he was free to do whatever he wanted, in this case marrying Britta, to make him realize it. Minutes later, when Borchert announced an extreme burst of passion could cold start the computer and allow the group to escape, It was Jeff’s love for Annie that did the trick. But he knew he couldn't tell anyone. Realizing he had been silent for a few seconds, Jeff scrambled for a response.

“So do I get any say in this?” He clamored, trying his best to sound casual. 

“Not really”, Britta jeered. “You signed a contract saying you’d agree to be a subject in one of my studies a while back. None of the experiments Duncan and I have done seemed compelling enough to warrant your participation, but this one takes the cake.”

“When did I sign off on this?”

“It was the gas leak year, I think.”

Jeff winced. Damn gas leak. 

“Come on,” Annie said as she tapped him on the shoulder with the back of her hand. “I think we all would love to know what’s going on inside the mind of Jeff Winger.”

“Guys” he interjected: “Half the time I don’t know what’s going on in the mind of Jeff Winger. And I am Jeff Winger.”

“I knew it…” Troy and Abed said in unison. Rachel turned to them, with a look of realization that she had become the third wheel.

“Well, that’s why we want to do this study!” Britta explained. 

“How does the study work anyways?” Jeff tried his best to not sound worried. If the group found out what opened that door, it could be devastating. He could become the butt of jokes, he could be pitied, but worst of all, he could lose what he had with Annie. Even if what they had at the moment was an odd mix of platonic friendship, paternal instinct and unresolved sexual tension, it was better than nothing. 

“Well,” Borchert began, “Using my blueprints of Racquel’s hard drive that responded to the emotional jumpstart, we want to construct a new machine that would hook up to your head much like the old one did. Then, we expose you to certain stimuli to see if it elicits enough of an emotional response to trigger the Computer’s cold start mechanism.”

“This study could put Greendale back on the map” Dean added.

“Okay, first off: the term ‘back on the map’ implies that Greendale was once on the map, which we all know is false. Seriously, look up Greendale Community College on Google Maps. Literally nothing comes up. We’re still the Greendale Morgue according to Google.”

“EW! GROSS” the group says in unison, as Pelton cowers back just a little.

“Secondly, what kind of stimuli?”

“Well, visual, audio, the word for smell and touch that would be used in this context, you know, the usual.”

“Yeah, we’d show you movies, songs, smells, pictures, and other things to see if it triggers anything in between your ears,” added Britta.

Jeff all of a sudden feels a bit cornered. A fool’s errand, this is not. For once in the school’s existence, Greendale fails to pull a Greendale. The Experiment’s premise is actually rock solid. He looked at Annie, who seems interested in the study. If only she knew what it would uncover. 

“Well, I think you should do it”, Annie said.

“Guys, no.” Jeff says, a hint of an edge beginning to grow in his voice. 

“But Jeffrey… Why not?” Shirley asks. “Don’t you want to know what part of your heart saved the school?” She looked around at everyone sitting around the fire: “Saved US?”

A spark suddenly ignites in Abed’s usually blank eyes: “Unless… Jeff already knows, and he’s claiming ignorance to cover the truth.”

“Jeffrey…” Shirley’s soft, loving motherly tone suddenly shifts into her preachy, stern, motherly tone: “You know a sin of omission is still a sin, right?”

It was crazy how close to the truth this band of misfits had managed to get, without help from him he might add. Annie grabs his forearm gently; 

“Why won’t you tell us, Jeff?” 

Usually, this gesture would give Jeff a feeling of warmth, a feeling of joy. Physical contact with Annie, no matter how small, tended to do this to Jeff. Today, however, it makes him uncomfortable; As if she will find out what he’s hiding via touch. 

Britta’s face then lights up. “I know why! It’s because one of us triggered it.”

“That’s ridiculous,” he scoffs. Okay, how were they doing this?

“Yeah,” Annie chimed in. “That’s ridiculous, Britta. We all know Jeff doesn’t care about us nearly enough to unlock a giant computer vault.”

The words stung him. He knew he should’ve been happy she was agreeing with him and pushing them away from the real answer, but the way in which she did left a mark.  
The group began to bicker amongst each other with theories of what opened the doors, as Jeff sat there, eyes closed, head tilted back and face covered by his hands. The speculation continued; scotch, boobs, being a lawyer again, being a SUCCESSFUL lawyer again, so on and so forth. The dean unsurprisingly was convinced it was him who triggered Jeff to open the door. Abed and Troy’s speculation had quickly segued into how they thought the new Disney Star Wars movies were going to turn out. If Jeff’s eyes were open, he would most definitely be rolling them. Eventually though, Jeff lifted his head up and boomed “Enough!”

Everyone abruptly stopped and turned to Jeff.

“Why do you guys want to know so bad?”

“We deserve to know what saved us from a life of seclusion and computer incest,” Britta countered. “No offense,” she continued, turning to Borchart who had evidently been hurt by the comment. 

“Yeah, saved….” The Dean muttered, self conciously. 

“Plus….you’re Jeff Winger” Shirley added. “We all want to know what makes you tick.”

“Yeah, I’m finding it hard to believe that the mighty Jeff Winger actually felt strongly enough about something to override a love bot”, Troy chimed in as well. “Love bot….” Troy said to himself before turning to Abed.

“New movie idea?”

“New movie idea”, Abed responded as the two exchanged their signature handshake. 

Annie once again reaches out to touch Jeff. This time it was in the shoulder. 

“Jeff,” she says sincerely. “Don’t you think we have a right to know?” 

He knew he needed to tell her. If he had any chance at being with her, he had to tell her. And he had planned on it for so long. However, he’d waited equally as long; almost an entire summer, to be exact. And now, due to his procrastination, he’d been backed into a corner. He had no choice. He snaps, and stands up suddenly. 

“Not like this!” he exclaims. Everyone recoils, startled by his sudden outburst. He tells himself to relax. He takes a sip of beer to take a bit of an edge off as he collects his thoughts and regroups. I guess this is it, he thinks to himself.

“Sorry…” he apologizes sincerely.

They’re all on the edge of their seats, looking at him and wondering what he’s going to say next.

“If I tell you…what opened up the door…can I get out of this experiment and will you PLEASE stop asking questions?” 

“Sounds reasonable enough”, Borchert answers. Everyone else nods in agreement. Jeff feels a drop of beer trickle down onto his knuckle. He didn’t realize it, but his hand has been shaking ever since he stood up which causes some of the beer to escape the can and land on his hand. All it takes is that realization for him to get a handle on just how nervous he is. His throat and stomach feel like they've lumped together, he feels a cold sweat on the back of his neck, and his voice seems to have hidden deep down in his lungs, refusing to come out. He finishes the beer, which takes care of two problems: The voice is back, and the beer is no longer shaking in his hand since there is no beer.

“Okay,” He says carefully, as if speaking too fast might accidentally cause him to utter what he’s been trying so hard to withhold.  
All of them, including Annie, look up at him.

“The person who I thought of in order to open the door…”

Dead silence, as everyone stared up at him in anticipation.

“Was…”

Jeff glanced down at Annie ever so quickly before opening his mouth and pushing out into the open the words he’d fought so hard to keep buried deep down:

“Annie.” He gestured to her, before forcing himself to spit out another sentence. 

“I’m in love with Annie.”

There’s a second of silence, a second that seems to last forever as the group analyzes the data he's just given them. Shirley breaks the silence, as she bursts into laughter. And then everyone bursts into laughter. Britta is the only one who is mad. 

“Jeff, how dare you lie to try and get out of this? This experiment is important to me, I thought you were better than that!” She fumes. Jeff is at a loss for words. 

“But-I’m not-This isn’t-“ 

His eyes searched for Annies as some sort of desperate attempt of lifeline. She’s laughing too; she also has a look of confusion and embarrassment on her face. 

“You guys don’t believe me?” He exclaims

“Sorry Jeff”, Shirley manages to utter in between laughs

“But there’s just no way. You being hot for Annie? Hell we’ve all known that since that debate six years ago. But love?”

“Yeah, Jeff” Annie says, “Jeff Winger loving anybody? I’ll believe it when I see it.” Her tone sounds as if she’s trying to convince herself as much as she’s trying to convince Jeff. 

“Anyways, you were engaged to Britta when this all happened!”

She looked up at him, and shrugs.

“I’m sorry, Jeff. It just doesn’t sound believable.”

His head swiveled around, examining everyone, who have by now somewhat collected themselves. Somewhat. He’s made a monumental fool of himself, and for what? He's broken the one rule he’s always followed in his life: Don’t disclose emotions. He nodded sarcastically before opening his mouth one last time. 

“Yep. I’m the butt of the joke. Y’know, this is why I don’t tell you guys stuff.” Jeff turns to grab his keys and makes a beeline for the parking lot. Annie tries to grab his hand, but he shakes it away. What was left of the laughter abruptly stops as the group realizes for the first time that he may not be lying. 

“Jeffrey, where are you going??” Shirley shouts.

“Anywhere but here” He yells back, without turning around. He got in his car, and backed out. A person, Annie approached out of his peripheral vision and she shouted at him through the partially open window.

“Jeff, I-“

“Save it”, he countered as the window rolls back up and he hits the gas. He’s not in the mood to talk to any of them for a while. But where does he go? They’re going to try and call him, and they’re definitely going to try his apartment, so that’s a no go. His mother is an obvious choice, but he knows after his apartment and Greendale, they will likely track her down too. He thinks about hitting up someone from his old firm, but he doesn’t want to have to deal with sleazy lawyers. He needs to be alone. And that’s when he thinks of it.  
Using his car’s Bluetooth function, he instructs his phone to call Jordan Hiller. 

“Hello?”

“Hey Jordan, it’s Jeff.”

“Jeff? Jeff who?”

“Jeff Winger, your old lawyer?”

“Oh Jeff! What’s up my man, long time no talk! How ya been? Still mopping the courtroom with Prosecutors?”

“Nah, actually I’m a prof- It doesn't matter. Look, I gotta call in a favor.”

“Anything, bro.”

“You still got that Ski lodge condo?”

“Don’t say another word. I’ll give the resort a call right now, they’ll have a key for ya when you get there.”

“Thanks Jordy, you’re the best.”

“Anytime, my man.“

Jeff hangs up, and takes the next exit to the highway. His phone is immediately buzzing with text messages. It’s pretty safe to assume they’re from the group. He puts his phone on silent, and tosses it onto the passenger’s seat. His car’s already got a bag of clothes that he never took out from when he spent the weekend at his moms, not to mention various gym clothes. He gets there in roughly over an hour, stopping at a liquor store along the way to pick up two bottles of scotch. 

Winger picks up the key from the front desk, before getting to his room. He turns on a lamp in the spacious condo, located roughly 100 yards from the main building, then wanders over to retrieve a glass in the liquor cabinet, taking a seat on a couch where he pours himself a half-glass of scotch, and takes a generous sip. It goes down smooth, and for the first time since him and Troy walked up to the group sitting around the campfire, his heartbeat seems to slow just a bit. 

He had told Annie he loved her. He had been backed into a corner, probed for an answer. And when he had finally given one, they took it as a joke. Like he was lying to get out of doing the stupid experiment. Jeff couldn't remember the last time he had felt this horrible. He was so tired of it all, he thought. He hung a Do Not Disturb sign on the door, before drinking himself to sleep. And thus began the cycle that would dictate Jeff Winger’s life for the next week and a half. Wake, drink, sleep, repeat. Aside from leaving to grab a bite or to buy another bottle, he never leaves.


	2. Retreat In Order To Advance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jeff retreats to seclusion after a confrontation at the Greendale Picnic over the events in Borchert's Lab. Jeff-centric, Annie does not appear in this chapter but is mentioned several times.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The place where Jeff is hiding out is in a ski lodge. It's summer, however, so the lodge just functions as a normal hotel.

He was awoken abruptly as the hotel phone on the nightstand rang. Who the hell is calling him this early in the morning, He thought to himself. He turned over to the nightstand, picking up his cellphone first to check the time. 3 in the afternoon. Not so early, he thought. He answered the hotel phone, trying not to sound drunk or hungover. At this point he wasn’t sure which one he was.

“H-hello?” 

“Yes, is this Mr. Winger?”

“The one and only.”

“Hi, I’m Alaina from the lodge’s front desk. There’s a visitor here for you, he said he was going to knock but saw the do not disturb sign on the doorknob and that you haven’t answered your cell.”

Visitor? Had the gang found him? He found it extremely unlikely. And Jordy wouldn’t need a key to get into his own lodge. He did his best to hide his confusion and sound natural. 

“Yeah, sorry. Just taking a nap.”

“Understandable, Mr. Winger. Should we send him up?”

“Not without getting a name.” He could hear the woman talking to a muffled voice, before getting back on the line.

“Yes, there is a Mr. Nadir here to see you. Is that name familiar?”

Abed? How did he find him? Jeff hesitated, angry that his secluded spot had been found. He was also a little bit impressed, but mostly upset. Then again, he thought, if anyone in the group was going to talk to him he would rather it be Abed. In many ways, Abed and him were alike; cool, calm, calculating, and not big on openly expressing emotions. What the hell, he thought. He was interested in how Abed found him anyways. 

“Yeah, send him back. I’ll open up for him.”

Jeff crawled out of bed, grabbing a pair of grey sweats to throw on over his boxer briefs as he put on a plain white t-shirt. He slipped into a pair of flip flops and headed towards the door. Maybe it was the fact that he hadn’t worried about any visitors until right then, but it hit him that the place smelled like crap. The lack of showering was catching up with him. Jeff could see Abed through the window as he approached the door, in jeans, a white Flash t-shirt, and a navy blue zip up hoodie. At least he was alone, he thought as he unlocked the door and opened.

“Abed?” he said, sounding more surprised than he originally intended. “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing”, he quipped back in that lightning fast manner that had become his trademark.

“I just needed to get…away for a while, I guess. Here, come in.”

Abed walked in, his head craning as he surveyed the surroundings. As per usual, his facial expression didn’t change even one bit as he scanned the room. There really wasn’t much to it. There was a takeout pizza box on the coffee table, a full bottle of scotch on the kitchen counter, and an empty one sticking out of the trash. 

“Love what you’ve done with the place”, he observed in as sarcastic a tone as he could imagine but quickly changed to an apologetic one when Jeff shot him a stare. “Sorry, it’s the kind of thing someone would say in a movie to lazily attempt avoiding a deeper subject.” 

Jeff walked over to the counter, grabbing a glass and pouring himself two fingers before turning back to his friend. “Abed, wha-“

“Before you ask the question, I found you using that tracker I put on everybody. You know, back during the gas leak.”

“Wow, a lot of weird stuff happened during that gas leak…Does anyone else-“

“No, no one knows you’re here besides me. Rachel’s busy waiting tables today and Troy’s meeting with Pierce’s banker to discuss the inheritance, so I decided to come by and check up on you. It was either that, or watch reruns of Love American Style and that goes against my beliefs.”

“What, stupid romantic shows are against Islam?”

“No, they’re just stupid and never should have existed. So watching it would be acknowledging that it exists.”  
Fair point, he thought. That show sucked. 

“What about Annie?” 

“What about her?”

“I don’t know, where…is she? How is she doing?”

Abed paused for a second to think, something he seldom did.

“She’s fine. We don’t see much of her, though. She’s been working a lot and she’s taking summer classes online, so that keeps her pretty busy. Spends whatever free time she does have in her room.”

“Has she been…talking about me?”

Abed once again stops and thinks. “A little bit. She thinks what happened is her fault. It’s kind of all of ours, though. She also should’ve taken your confession more seriously, it just caught her off guard and she didn’t know what to think. None of us did.”

Jeff sinks into a chair and motions for Abed to take a seat on the couch. He obliges.

“Are you gonna tell anyone I’m here?”

“No, but at least now I can know not to file a missing police report.”

He nods slowly. That could be messy. He looked at Abed once more, realizing his unbiased and stoic approach to everyday life could help him see what was going on from a new perspective. 

“Can I ask you one last thing, Abed?”

Abed returned his stare, waiting expectantly for the question.

“What do you think…about all this?”

“The getting drunk alone in a hotel thing? Well with the scraggly beard and booze, you remind me of Martin Sheen from the beginning of Apocalypse Now.”

“Abed”, Jeff interjected. It’s not uncommon for Abed to go on pop culture tangents like these, where he gets a movie reference in his head and begins to build off of it. In the group’s experience, it’s better to just nip it in the bud before he gets the ball rolling.

“Oh, right. Well, I wasn’t surprised that you feel the way you feel about Annie. That’s pretty obvious. Most of the group thought it was just a creepy infatuation, but I’ve watched enough movies to know the difference between love and lust. So, no. You loving Annie wasn’t a surprise. However, admitting it was. You strayed from Character. It was a climax, a turning point. She brought that out in you. But when she didn’t believe you, you receded back into your shell. You thought the Character Development was a mistake, and now you’re over correcting it by being twice as secluded as you were before.”

He nodded slowly, staring out the window at barren hills that would be covered in snow a few months down the road. “That sounds about right.”  
“If by right you mean accurate? Then yes. But it’s not the right move. Characters are supposed to develop and grow. They do that by suffering through hardships. It’s what keeps people watching. If every time a character reverted back to his old ways when he ran into a wall, no one would watch TV shows. No one would watch movies, or read books. We’re attracted to growth. We love seeing people come out on the other side twice the man that they were when they entered. And yeah it may seem cool for a main character to fall back into old habits for an episode or two, but then they’re expected to climb back out of it stronger than before.”  
Jeff nods, soaking it in. So this is how it feels to be on the other side of a speech, he thought. 

“I want to come back….I’m just not ready.”

Abed nodded. “I understand. Different people take different time to grow.”

They talked for a little while more, about this and that; Troy re-adjusting to life on dry land, the Rise of Ultron movie, Duncan drunk texting the crap out of Britta, before Abed checked his watch.

“Okay. I need to go before they get suspicious of my absence.”

They both stand up, as Jeff walked Abed to the door. Abed turned around and offers a hand at the doorway. Jeff obliges and shakes it. 

“Come back soon. Greendale’s pretty boring when the Damaged Leader With a Heart of Gold role is vacant.”

“I’ll do my best”, Jeff assured, as Abed started for his car but was recalled by Jeff once more.

“Abed," Abed turned around.

“You’re not going to tell them where I am, right?”

Abed shook his head no. “I can lie. I’m told I have a good poker face.”

Jeff nodded slowly, as Abed continued to walk away.

“Wait, one more thing,” He said a few seconds after.

Abed turned around once more.

“Thank you for coming by. I appreciate it.”

“Cool,” His friend responded. “Cool cool cool.”

Maybe it’s Abed’s visit, or maybe it’s the fact that he’s spent more than he’s like to admit on alcohol in the past week and a half, but Jeff decides it’s time conclude his trashy vacation and head back to reality. Eventually, he’s going to have to confront Annie. Best not to wait again, that’s the reason we’re in this mess to begin with. He decides to sleep off the remaining booze in his system, and prepares packs up, does his best to clean what he can, and leaves a sizable tip to the poor housekeeping crew that has to clean up the next morning. By 11, he’s back on the road, heading towards Greendale. By 12, he’s in his apartment.


	3. Sleep Leads To Dreams; Dreams Lead To Nightmares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jeff gets home from his sabbatical, and finally has the nerve to check his phone for the first time in two weeks. Jeff-centric.

He should probably let Abed know that he’s back, he realized as he unpacks what little clothes he did bring. He opened his phone only to come to the sudden realization that he’s got two weeks full of worried texts, voicemails, and chat notifications to sit through. A drink may be necessary to get through this, he thought to himself since his absence might have done some damage to a few people. He’s also still a tad hung over and is tired of scotch, so he settles for a Bloody Mary as he shoots Abed a quick text.

"Back. Going to sleep the hangover off tonight, I’ll get back in contact tomorrow."

From there, he began chipping away at the massive amount of voice messages and texts awaiting him in his inbox. First, the text messages. Texting is a very impersonal medium, hence why it’s Jeff’s favorite. He began reading by person:

First, Shirley:  
"7/14/14: Jeffrey! We didn’t mean what we said, it was inconsiderate of us to act this way and we’re all worried about you."

"7/15/14: I’ll be praying for you."

"7/21/14: Abed said he ran into you today, but didn’t say where. We’re just glad you’re okay. Please come back soon."

Nothing too bad, he thinks as he sips slowly on his drink. Mostly the maternal concern that defines Shirley and Jeff’s relationship.

Abed's texts don't really divulge any information that he didn't tell Jeff in person.

Next, Troy:

"7/14/14: Hey man, that wasn’t cool of us. HMU if ya wanna talk."

Jeff appreciated Troy’s concern, but appreciates more the fact that Troy was wise enough to give him space. 

He deletes the Deans' texts altogether, same with Chang's.

Professor Duncan texted him saying that if Jeff was getting trashed in the middle of nowhere without him, he would never forgive his former Lawyer for not inviting him along. Essentially since he’s going to need a drink after finding out Liverpool's sold their best player to Chelsea. This gets a chuckle out of Jeff, and lightens the mood as he opens up is inbox from Britta.

"7/14/14: Ugh I’m so sorry about what happened, we all got so caught up in our selfish research that we forgot about how sensitive a subject it must have been. I didn’t realize til I got home that I would have reacted so much worse in your position. Call one of us back soon, we’re worried."

Her next one raises some concern:

"7/20/14: Okay, you can ignore us all you want, bud but how DARE YOU treat Annie like this. No one feels worse about this than she does, and what happened wasn’t even her fault. At all. If you want to give me or the Dean or anyone else the cold shoulder, be my guest. but do not-DO NOT take this out on her. Can you blame her for not believing what you said? You’re Jeff. You love nothing. You once told the group to 'nut up and die alone.' So, sorry if Annie was skeptical. She wants nothing but the best for you, and you being someone who has shut her down time and time again, can you blame her for not buying into what you said right away?"

Ouch. But it was nothing compared to Annie’s inbox. Because besides for the obligatory sorry text, there was nothing. And it stings.

He went through his voicemails, listening to and deleting all of them, until he stumbled onto the last few. These were from her. No one had called him more in the past two weeks than she did. Every single day since he had disappeared, she had called him. 5:15 pm, every day. And every day, she had left the same voice mail.

“Jeff, please answer your phone. We need to talk. Call me back, I miss you, and I’m so, so sorry…”

The words hit his chest like a dagger. For some reason, he listens to all 10 of them. Each one seems to push the blade further and further into his heart. Each one gets more and more emotional. By the 10th one, the one left yesterday, she’s barely saying words. She’s just sobbing. And it’s enough to bring him to tears. He hangs up the phone, realizing just how much he has hurt her. He’s confessed his love for her, just to turn tail and run before he can offer up any sort of explanation. It’s unfair to her, he realizes. She was just as on the spot as he was when he told the group he loved her. It must have been just as embarrassing for her. Maybe Britta was right. She was denying what he had told her because in the six years they’d known each other, he really hadn’t given her a reason to believe it. Hell, he was engaged to Britta at the time of the Passion Surge! He was about to end what he thought they had been slowly building towards because he panicked and wanted something safe. He felt disgusting. 

Jeff pounded back the rest of the Bloody Mary before retreating back to his liquor cabinet to get something a little harder. Coming back had been a mistake, he thought. But he couldn’t re-retreat, so drinking himself into submission once again would have to do. With him filling his yearly quota for Scotch in a 2 week period, he decided to move down on his list to the next drink: Bourbon. 

He sank himself into his favorite chair, propping his feet up onto the table after throwing a pillow on top as a foot rest. The apartment may have been new, but the old cycle had begun. I wonder how long I can keep this up until someone checks up on me? Winger thought to himself as he slowly sipped away. He thought about calling Annie, but figured it was not the time. He was in gym shorts, slip on sandals, and a cutoff gym tee not to mention he had amassed a bigger beard growth than he had allowed himself to grow since the summer he was disbarred. She shouldn’t have to see him like this. Once again, he fell into a liquor-induced sleep, this one a bit lighter than the ones he had endured last week. He dreams about everything in his life that has gone wrong up to this point. His parents divorcing, getting picked on at school, cutting a scar below his belt line to fake an appendectomy, dropping out of college, being disbarred, everything that had happened at Greendale, all of it. 

He woke suddenly and in a haze, fumbling around to get his phone. It’s 5:20. No call from Annie. Jeff Winger, you are sorry excuse for a human being, he thought to himself. You've finally done it. Once again, she had given up on him. A lazy arm reaches for his glass on the table next to the sofa, but it’s empty. So Instead, he grabbed the bottle of bourbon right off the coffee table and swigs it straight for a few seconds. After shoving the rubber cork back in, the liquor hits him like a blitzing linebacker. The lights in his mind dimmed once more. 

This time, the dream is solely about Annie. It's first time he ever saw her, when her and the study group were sitting around the table looking up at him. He was still attempting to get in Britta’s pants at the time, so he saw all of them as a mere annoyance. Annie had asked him if he was really a board certified tutor, her voice full of skepticism. She was the first one at the table to call his bluff. Even before she knew who he was, she could see right through him. 

Next, his mind began drifting to when she confronted him about having ulterior motives for making Troy play football again. Only this time, he was prepared. He countered her with his reasoning that she wasn’t all that pure in her motives to keep him off the field either. While he shouldn’t have been happy for making an 18 year old girl cry, he was somewhat relieved that she wasn’t infallible. She was just as flawed as he. Okay, maybe he was a little more flawed. After all, she would later say, he did make an 18 year old girl cry. 

He remembered offering her his hand for a dance at the Halloween Party. She had begged him to come all week, and although he made a brief initial appearance, he slipped out to go to the faculty party in search of Slater. He had left Annie high and dry, almost ruining the night. The party had come this close to being ransacked by a drug-induced Pierce when Jeff swept in at the last second. He sacrificed his night with Slater in order to help her out. 

She had gotten him to join the debate team, where one of Abed’s student films predicted them kissing. They realized then and there they were mutually attracted to each other, much to the other’s surprise as well as their own. During that debate, Annie kissed Jeff in a last-ditch effort to secure a win for Greendale. He has always been startled by how much he enjoyed it. 

He would kiss her again on the last day of school, as he retreated from the pressure of having to choose either Slater or Britta. She was retreating as well, running away from her boyfriend Vaughn who was moving to Delaware. They met in the parking lot, both venting about their respective romantic entanglements. He wanted to kiss her, but knew it would complicate things. So, he hugged her instead. She had briefly initiated a kiss, catching him very off guard. The look on her eyes said it was a mistake, but she had unlocked the Pandora’s Box. Jeff went back in, for a much longer and passionate kiss: a kiss he would falsely claim was a mistake repeatedly the next year, much to Annie’s chagrin. Even worse, he would claim that whatever she thought was happening between them was something she fabricated. It was a flat out lie of self-preservation.  
Other memories flooded his mind. Him comforting her at the model UN, her comforting him after the class president debate, them teaming up during paintball wars, investigations, prosecutions, the list went on. 

The last place his mind went was the sealed basement lair of Professor Borchert. As the group pressed Borchert to find a way to open the vault against his will, she stopped them. “We have to respect each other enough to…let each other want what we want.” She was talking about Borchert, but he could feel the words being directed at him. She was him her blessing to marry Britta, a marriage both he and Britta knew had the shelf life of a lukewarm glass of milk. Yet Annie was okay with it.

Those words were a wake up call minutes later, when he was hooked up to the Computer’s mainframe trying to uncover some sort of passion powerful enough to warrant a jump start. It wasn’t the thought of Britta that unlocked it, it was Annie. It always had been Annie. As he had looked at the back of her head, two of the most powerful memories he had ever stored up in his heart came out. 

He had kissed her hand during the second week of Spanish class, as part of his sucking up to the rest of the study group. 

“Milady,” he crooned. 

She blushed and responded bashfully: “Milord.”

And as her and Jeff had reconciled their differences over Troy’s decision to play football again, he had offered her his arm as they stood outside the pep rally.

“Milady”, he had said once again.

She looked at the heartfelt gesture reluctantly but was won over by the Winger Charm, locking her arm around his as they made their way inside.

“Milord”

Those two words were all it took to open the door. And that moment, perhaps the most vulnerable moment of his entire life, had been his undoing at the picnic. 

“Milady”, he thought to himself.

“Milady”

“Milady….”

“Mi…-“ 

Nothing. 

Then,

“Jeff? Jeff! Are you okay??” 

He feels himself rock a little, surprised. Someone’s calling his name but it seems too real to be a part of the dream. Despite its realness, the voice sounds distant. He tries to wake himself up. He opens his eyes, but his vision is blurred and he’s seeing double of everything in his apartment. 

“What? Who?” He stammered. It takes a minute, but his vision is slowly coming back to him, as the room starts to settle down. Someone is leaning over to him from the next spot over on the couch, shaking his shoulder gently. He can’t make out who it is, as the lights from his apartment all of a sudden seem twice as bright as he remembers. After a few seconds, they begin to fade. The beams of light around this mystery person slowly fade too, and the blurred lines become defined once more. He squints-then realizes he liked it when the light and his own drunkenness were blinding him, because it’s better than the alternative. It’s better than having to face the person standing right in front of him. He feels around for the bourbon, but it’s nowhere to be found. So, he has to look up into the eyes of the person he’s been trying to avoid for two weeks, but yet has somehow found a way to end up right next to him.

“Annie?”


	4. Lost In Her Eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter. After a series of ups and downs, Jeff finally confronts his feelings. Jeff-centric once again.

Jeff sat up, or did his best impression of someone trying to sit up. Annie’s hand was still on his shoulder.

“Easy, Jeff. It’s okay.”

He looked over at the clock. It’s 9:30 pm. She slowly helps him into an upright position. Annie had put a blanket over him at some point, a good call considering how cold the room had gotten and how ill-dressed he was. 

“I’m sorry, you shouldn’t have to see me like this…” 

Her hand reached over and stroked his neck, reassuring him: “Jeff, it’s okay” . 

He tried to piece together the days events: “I was supposed to be done… I came home to see you guys… I checked my phone when I got back to my apartment. I…I saw that you guys had called every day. I saw that YOU had called every day…And you didn’t today…” He trailed off as he began to sob silently. 

Annie pulled him into her arms, his head nestling in under her chin, hands on the back of his neck. 

“Jeff, don’t worry. We’re just glad you’re back.”

He sat there for a few minutes, silently collecting himself before slowly pulling away from her. In her voice, he can hear that she’s hurting too. But she’s putting on the brave face as she’s been forced into the caretaker role. He wants to get the conversation off of him for a second, so he started with the obvious question:

“How long have you been here for? And how did you get in?”

Annie shifted a little bit on the couch, and she moves away slightly. “It’s kind of embarrassing, actually…”

“Annie,” Jeff says in a low, lecturing tone before he motions to himself in his abysmal state. “Nothing you say can outdo this, i'm the definition of embarrassing.”

She smiles slightly. 

“I get off work at 5 every day, and... I’ve been driving by your place afterwards because, I don’t know, I was hoping your apartment lights would be on or something. When they weren’t, I’d call you. Just on the off chance you’d see it and call me back so we could talk. It’s funny cuz after yesterday’s message… It had been a long day at work, and I was so fed up… I barely got through it. I didn’t know if I could do another one." Her eyes moved up to meet his. "And surprise surprise, I didn’t have to.” The smile grew a little more: “The lights were on. Granted, I had to do like a triple take and remind myself which floor you lived on to see if I miscounted, but it was you. I was going to come up right away, but I decided to get some Chinese.” She tilted her head slightly, “You know, as a homecoming gift. The guy on the first floor recognized me, and you left your door unlocked…that’s how I got in. I saw that you were passed out on the couch, so I put the food in the fridge and took the liquor from you. Then I just decided to babysit you, I guess.”

Jeff nodded, slowly. “I kinda drank myself to sleep again when I saw you hadn’t called yet….”

“I noticed,” she said softly. 

“So…you’ve just been here since 5:30?”

“Yup.”

“Why didn’t you go? I could’ve handled-“

“No you couldn’t have,” she said, picking up a bottle of bourbon from behind her and lifting it in the air, as if she was displaying evidence to a jury.

Guilty, Jeff thought. “Fair enough.”

“In my personal experience...when I was addicted and such... the worst way to go through something was alone. That’s when I was weakest. I’m not saying you’re an addict or anything, but I just figured here was as good a place as any to just… wait for you.” 

He can’t state how grateful he is for the gesture. He feels a slight headache coming on, however, so he'd told her he’s getting up for some ibuprofen and a Gatorade. 

“No, Jeff, I can get it.”

He declined adamantly, even after she insists. He just needs to get the blood moving a little bit, gather his thoughts. He's folded up the blanket, draping it over the back of the couch and heads towards the kitchen. After grabbing an Under Armour hoodie out of his closet on the way back, and swallowing three tablets plus a generous gulp of his sports drink, Jeff returned to the family room. She’s still sitting on the couch, patiently. They hold eye contact for a few seconds, and once again those doe eyes see right through him. There’s an elephant in the room, and she knows no one wants to ignore it more than he does. Which is why he needs to bring it up now. He turns around, breaking eye contact as he puts the bottle of green liquid down on the foot-high fire place ledge. He walks slowly towards the back wall of his house, hands propped up over his head, elbows sticking out at a 90 degree angle. 

“Jeff?” She asks, her voice laced with concern. “Everything all right?”

He lets out a long, tired, sigh. Here goes:

“It wasn’t supposed to happen like this,” He says. 

“What, I-”

“You know what I’m talking about.”

“I do…I guess I’m just confused. How DID you want this to play out? How did you want…us…to play out?”

He’s got nothing. 

“I…I don’t know.”

“Were you planning on just waiting forever, or were you assuming I liked you back and I'd make yet another first move or something? That I'd make a fool of myself… again?”

He can tell she doesn’t mean to, but her tone is rising and has a slight militant edge to it.

“When were you planning on telling me you loved me? Assuming it’s the truth…”

“I would never lie to you…” he counters.

“No, but you would lie to yourself. I’ve seen you do it.”

“I wasn’t...”

“Okay, then when were you planning on telling me this?”

His eyes drop to his feet momentarily, and he looks up at her. She’s standing now, arms folded, next to the couch.

“Never.”

“Never?? Jeff how could you withhold this kind of information from me-“

“BECAUSE I DON’T DESERVE YOU,” He barks. She steps back, eyes wide, in shock from his outburst. He’s a little shocked himself.  
Her face softens, and he can see a slight glisten of tears in her eyes. She takes a small step forward. 

“Jeff-“

“No, it’s true, okay? I’m not worthy of you. You’re the funniest, smartest, weirdest person I know. You straight up perplex me. You see through me like nobody else does, it’s honestly uncanny. You’re always willing to help, even when I don’t want it- especially when I don’t want it-“ He sees her chuckle to herself. “You’re incredible, Annie. And I love you. But guess what? I’m not incredible. I’m a bottled up emotionless, narcissistic freak whom if it wasn’t for the existence of Abed, would be the robot of the group. I mean, look at me. I’m a labyrinth of secrets and contradictions so complex, even I don’t understand them. Hell, it took me two weeks of being alone and getting drunk out of my mind 24/7 to even BEGIN to find myself. Even then, that wasn’t enough. It took Abed tracking me down to bring me back.” He sees a slight look of confusion on her face. Abed kept it from Annie, he realizes. Good boy, Abed. “You being with me, or even considering the opportunity to be with me, is a disservice to yourself. And I didn’t want to be the one responsible for your own undoing. All you gotta do to get a real, good sense of just how messed up I am is to take a look at Britta. Here’s a secret. I didn’t go into the study room looking for Britta. I went in looking for you. And you know what, I’m glad you weren’t there, because I would have told you everything I’m telling you right now, and it would have blown up in my face, and ruined our lives. Maybe right then, maybe a week later, maybe a year later. But it would’ve happened. So yeah, I was content to live life on the sidelines with Britta, which, I should mention, is an awful disservice to her too, and let you live your life the way it was meant to be while I got to salvage at least a little something from the wreckage that you can call my time at Greendale. Me and you could preserve whatever it is we have, even if it’s not what I wanted. Cuz however dissatisfying it would be, it would be better than nothing. There wasn’t supposed to be any hidden treasures, or super computers, or extreme bursts of passion. You were never supposed to know.”

He didn’t realize it because he was so caught up in his speech, but she’s been slowly coming towards him, and by the time he finishes she’s right in front of him. She takes his hand, stroking the back of it with her thumb.

“You were willing…to put yourself through all that torture, all that unhappiness… for me?” 

He looks up, once again meeting her gaze. And it hits him; she no longer neeeds to see through his armor. He’s disarmed himself. He’s exposed himself, in a figurative sense of course, to her. And he feels more secure than he ever has before. For the first time, he has nothing to hide. 

“Yes. Annie Edison, I-“

She covers his mouth. “Don’t say it.” His heart stops. “I appreciate you wanting to look out for me. But I’m 24… I can decide what I think is bad for me and what isn’t. I feel like I should at least be consulted in decisions regarding how I spend my life… I’m not an 18 year old girl anymore.”

He nods, slowly, but is no less confused. “Where are you going with this?”

The corners of her lips turn up as she speaks up once more: “What I’m saying is… It’s not fair that you’ve said it three times before I’ve even said it once.”

He looks down, still thoroughly puzzled. “Annie, say what three times“

“I love you too, Jeff Winger.”

She pulls his hand in, and the rest of him follows. His arms wrap around her lower back, and her arms come up to his shoulders as their lips collide. They hold it for God knows how long, as he moves his hands up and gently strokes the back of her hair. Her hands have moved to his chest, and she slowly pushes off of him. He opens his eyes, looking down at her as she returns the look. For once, instead of trying to ignore her puppydog eyes, he indulges himself and gets lost in them. She tucks her head in under his, and they embrace in the middle of the room for what seems like an eternity. No, an eternity isn’t long enough, he thinks to himself. He kisses the top of her head as he pulls her in for an embrace and his hand moves up and down her back.

“You know, I didn’t think a kiss could get better than the last one we shared, five years ago.”

He can feel her chest heave a little as she laughs softly to herself. 

“You’re forgetting about the other timelines,” she teases as she squeezes him just a little tighter.

“Other timelines?” He asks curiously. 

“Yeah, according to Abed we kissed like four times in those other timelines on game night.”

He laughs too. That sounds like Abed. “Well…I’m seriously jealous of those four other Jeff Wingers. They beat me to the punch.”  
“Not as jealous as I am of those four other Annie Edisons.”

“You shouldn’t be. I highly doubt there’s another version of me that is a better kisser than this one.”

She playfully hits his shoulder. “Keep telling yourself that.”

She looks up at him once more. “I remember that last night we kissed, like it was yesterday. I was so ready for it to lead to something like…this. I held onto that memory, the one from outside the dance, for so long. And for the longest time, I felt like that memory was beginning to slip…”

“Well, we can make some new ones”, He assured her as he moved in once more for a long, emotional kiss. Jeff's senses are on overload. He feels her. He smells her. He tastes her. For a moment, nothing around him matters, not their friends, or their school, or anything. The only person of significance is the person he is locking lips with. They slowly pull apart once more. 

“Wait, how long have you felt this way about me?” He asked, curiously.

She thinks to herself for a second. “If we’re being honest, I think I had a schoolgirl crush on you since the first day of study group. When you told us all what made us so awesome.”

He lifts his eyebrows, surprised. “That long, huh?”

“What can I say? I’m a sucker for Jeff Winger speeches. But...I don’t think I even contemplated that I could actually love you until the day we were pointing those fake guns at each other in the study room.”

He smiled: “I knew that was too good to be acting”, he joked. 

She hit his chest playfully. “Shut up. What about you?”

“Ordering you the appletini in the hotel bar the day we were pretend married."  
He could tell the answer surprised her. "Why then??"

"Because the bartender asked if you were my wife...and I looked back at you. For some reason...I just went along with it. You just looked so beautiful, on that couch by yourself, patiently waiting for your drink... That might have been the point of no returns. It...just took you letting me go and me opening that door to fully realize it…”

They kissed again. Somehow, each kiss managed to top the last one. Each one felt so familiar, almost as if kissing her now was bringing back the memories of their first kiss all those years ago. He moved away, slowly opening his eyes once more as he looked at her.

“So….where do we go from here?” he asks.

“I guess we tell the group?" she offers.

“Agreed. But when do you wanna tell them? We can do it right now if you-“

“Maybe tomorrow”, she responds, “When you look less like a high end hobo and more like Jeff Winger.”

“Well you don’t seem to mind it”, he teases. 

“When you love someone you accept them for who they are.” 

“Annie Edison, are you using my own words against me? I gotta say, I’m impressed. You’d make a good lawyer.” 

She smiles, and shakes it off. “I learned from the best.”

“Well, in the meantime…what do you wanna do? I think Breakfast Club’s on ABC Family tonight. Seems kinda fitting, considering we met in a very Breakfast Club type of scenario…”

“That sounds…Amazing” she says as the two eskimo kiss. He must really love her, he thinks, to non-sarcastically be doing an Eskimo kiss.

“Do you like re-heated Takeout?” She asks, motioning with a sly grin over to the fridge. 

“Almost more than when it’s heated the first time,” he confirms. 

She flashes the classic Annie grin. “It’s a date, then!” 

She trots to the kitchen, as he grabs his Gatorade off the fireplace and takes another gulp. He stares at her as she removes the bags from his fridge, putting them on plates, and she glances back his way a couple of times as well. 

"Take a picture, it'll last longer," She teases.

“What? No, i'm not- But not that i don't- It's just....I love you,” he confesses once more.

She smiles at him from her position next to the microwave, where the dishes are warming. She's absolutely beaming, The look of affection on her face could melt even the coldest man’s heart. He knows, because it’s somehow managed to melt his. 

“I love you too.”

EPILOGUE:

They both lay on the couch, hand in hand, as the movie concluded. She had fallen asleep at around the hour point, not long after she’d finished eating. Due to his spending the day asleep, he wasn’t too tired. He sat there, watching her sleep, as “Don’t You Forget about Me” by the Simple Facts resonated from the TV’s surround sound. She was still in her work clothes, so before the movie started she asked him if she could borrow something a bit more comfortable. He obliged. She was wearing a pair of his plaid pajama pants and a Colorado Rapids shirt he had once caught via t-shirt gun. It was too small for him, but draped over her. He contemplated leaving her on the couch as to not disturb her beauty sleep, but decided a couch is no place to spend their first night together. Not before he documented this, however. He couldn’t help it if she looked adorable asleep. Jeff snapped a photo, before sliding the phone back into his pocket. He slipped one arm under her back, and another under her knees, and lifted her up. “Up we go,” he whispered as his back straightened out. She woke up suddenly, in a groggy haze. “Hmm? Wha-“

“Shhh”, he reassured her, as he walked her to his room and lay her in his sheets. “Go back to sleep, I’ll see you in the morning.”

“You will, won’t you?” She whispered, with a goofy, subconscious grin plastered across her face. “Milady,” He said as he kissed the back of her hand. Despite her apparent sleepiness, she somehow managed to finish the bit. “Milord…..” she barely whispered as she once again drifted off. 

He checked his phone, seeing a text from Abed that was sent a minute or two earlier. 

"Hey, got your message. Annie hasn’t come back from work today, would you know where she is by any chance?"

He chuckled to himself, and attached the photo he had taken moments earlier. The caption below said: "Yeah. Thanks for everything." 

"Don’t mention it. I knew you could do it."

He could never repay that kid for all he had done to help them, Jeff realized as he walked around to the other side of his bed. And for the first time in two weeks, he fell asleep without a drink in his hand. He reached over, and interlocked his fingers into hers, squeezing her hand. No, he thought. He was falling asleep with something much better. 

THE END.


End file.
